I'll chime in on this one myself since I agree wholeheartedly with the OP.
I'm gonna post about two different experiences. I have 2 characters who presently have both stalled out at level 5, it may be their levels, it may be their classes, it may be I'm just unlucky I don't really know. I've figured with both of them there are really only one or two places I can safely go on my own and those are very high gambles for me even with mobs that need nat 20's to be able to hit me.
Most of ya have probably seen me around as Ash Silverblade. I won't go too much into build, sufficing to say that I don't have an easy method of healing myself. Not a big deal in most cases. I have heal skill and bandages in a pinch. The issue is there is really one dungeon (the beetles) that I can reliably full clear on my own and that is if I get lucky enough not to be totally raped by the hive mothers. They are the only mob that is a major risk for me in that place. Everything else needs a nat 20 to hit me if I play my cards right and the Drobita supply me with a reliable enough healing source that I can get through the area just fine. The problem with this is, it seems like the exp I get for doing this is negligible. I mean I'm doing something that for me takes everything I have and yet I'm still on the message "just attained your new levels of power" and "feel as if you can handle whatever the mists throw at you." As far as I've come to understand this is still on the low end of exp to next level and high end as far as the most amount of bonus exp I can be earning.
Ok, so I can go into the Morning Lord crypt and get bone knuckles for potions right? Nope, that place is far more dangerous to me IMO because many of the mobs have damage reduction or hit much harder when they do tag those nat 20's and not every mob I can encounter needs that. Now again, its only one or two mobs in there that really spell my doom, but I've learned to avoid those. I pretty much cut and run if I'm alone and see more than one warrior skeleton or warrior corpse. I can sometimes use the doors or other positioning to my advantage and make them manageable, but even just one lucky hit sends me packing unless I have some of those handy potions. Whatever the case... I've killed quite a few mobs that to me were a bit of a challenge to take on alone.
The last place I can reliable go is the sewer and kill rats and I mean really.... they are rats. I'm not expecting much exp there. I know of a few other areas to check out, and those are crap shoots because I never know what I'm gonna encounter. Green oozes, no problem, ochre oozes, gotta run like hell. Ghouls, no problem, one ghoul lord sends me running. Shadows, I don't even think about it. Zeklos, no problem, its about 50/50 if I end up needing to run.
Now on Ash I tagged along with a higher level character to help clear and get the bounties in Port a Lucine once. That was fun and admittedly lucky on my part. That one run is what got me to level 3. The rest I have done on my own with this character with little exception.
Tsuki has had the fortune to fall in with some of the others of her unique plight and has cleared some of the more difficult areas with a group in tow. But even then, there isn't always that group to have in tow. Solo content wise, she is in roughly the same boat.
Now I can understand a reason for having a tough climb. You don't want the power balance to skew because someone can go grind happy 24/7. The soft/hard exp cap seems to take care of this just fine from what I can tell. I also understand there needs to be more dangerous places for the higher levels to go. I would just like it if those supposedly non-dangerous places for ME were more worthwhile. As it is it is a gamble for me to go to the places I've mentioned and one wrong death for me means losing hours of work. Why you ask? I've tried to live by the rule of earning enough coin to have on me so I can be raised should the unfortunate happen. Thats not tough, I can earn that in a full clear or two of the beetles, plus mink and rats. That at most takes me an hour maybe two of solo work. No problem.
The problem really comes down to this. Unless I build up a stockpile of weapons and shields and whatever else, which just seems kind of silly both IC and ooc I'm screwed unless I recover what I drop on dying. Noy just mildly inconvenienced, but may as well hang up my hat. (This is how it feels to me, it may not actually be the case, but let me tell ya its discouraging). Which is fine. Death is meant to be something intimidating. So I can wait for someone to drag my hapless corpse back and get raised. No big deal. I don't mind this risk most of the time. And honestly, on most of my runs out I've been lucky enough to recover and get back up if I get knocked down, but that mostly means I hang up my hat for that run and go lick my wounds.
When you travel with proper groups, you can do nearly anything.
This is very true.
I generally take people regardless of level with me, if it makes sense for the character. Especially if I am collecting crafting components, as it levels that person up, and I don't have to carry heavy things. lol.
This seems to make you the exception not the norm.
Also supposedly the creation of alchemy and potion brewing was creation so that people who for whatever reason couldn't find that group I speak of, to go out with fewer members. (Though IMO, all it did was make clerics more self relient, lol, but this is neither here nor there)
This is also true, but the cost/reward/time factor costs me resources that I don't really have. The amount of time I spend building up potions is easily flushed down the drain in one bad run. Not to mention it costs me quite a bit of gold to reliably make one usable potion. I know this will get better as I get more skilled. But its still less of an alleviating factor and more of one more thing that really just isn't in my eyes helping me as much as people think it should be with the number of times I've been told this in response to how hard it is for me to do things on my own if I want/need to.
I suggest trying not to flood yourself into areas like Har-Akir, Perfidus, as they are -meant- to be forboding and dangerous.
There are also A LOT OF DUNGEONS, I've found in Barovia that NO ONE ever does because they're too busy farming the same three dungeons. Take risks, respawn a few times. It's okay. We're not going to judge you.
These two points kind of fit hand in hand. I know not to go to those more dangerous areas cause I get raped faster than I can blink. As far as a lot of those other dungeons the problem is, no one does them. And as I understand the longer something goes without being cleared out the harder the spawn gets. That usually means it spells death trap for me unless I have one of those elusive groups in tow.
I'm not so much complaining that the exp is too slow. Maybe I am a little. But what I am complaining about is that the risk/reward factor feels incredibly skewed and is honestly extremely underwhelming for me when I tackle something that takes every resource I have and just doesn't net me much in return. Maybe I'm doing something wrong.... I don't really know, but the challenges for a new player seem fairly daunting which hey is ok, I like a challenge as much as the next guy, but I also feel where the OP is coming from. There comes a point where that challenge is no longer just challenging, but incredibly ridiculous.